


the song goes on

by eleutheria_has_won



Category: Anne Walsh's Dangerverse, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, life after death, the Clans (Dangerverse)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2321165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleutheria_has_won/pseuds/eleutheria_has_won
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Graham Pritchard goes home. </p>
<p>(Where ever home is.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Me and the rest of the family here singing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnneBWalsh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneBWalsh/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Surpassing Danger](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/73679) by whydoyouneedtoknow (Anne Walsh). 



“Where'd you go?  
I miss you so,  
Seems like it's been forever,  
That you've been gone.  
Where'd you go?  
I miss you so,  
Seems like it's been forever,  
That you've been gone,  
Please come back home...  
Please come back home... ”

\- _Where'd You Go_ , Fort Minor

 

...there was no time at all.

His name is Graham Pritchard, and there is no pain where the green light takes him.

There are rocks under his fingertips. Smooth and round, cool to the touch, they shift just slightly at his touch. Stretch too far, and the water's touch startles him, cold and fresh and clean. He has never seen a lake quite so clean. He can imagine sinking into, breathing it like air, so pure does it look. So too is the air, bright and untainted by smoke or blood or the dankness of a cave.

He can only just remember why the thought of a cave makes him want to cry.

The next thing his fingers touch is dry and smooth, warm, with just the slightest texture to its smoothness, not unlike pebbles. He knows what it is almost instantly, and his mouth curves into a slight smile, along where his face is pressed against the pebbles. A safety, as tangible as warmth or sunlight, falls over him like a blanket, and what he wants to say is 'I'm home,' but instead he whispers into the pebbles, “Hello, there.”

Graham is no Parseltongue, but somehow, he knows what the great snake says, and it does not startle him.

_Welcome home, little one._

Graham smiles and sits up slowly, the snake pressing against his side to help him. “Is that where I am?” he asks. He feels...not sore. Rather, like he expected to be sore. He isn't, by the by. There's just peace, and comfort, like the aches and pain that come with lying on a pebble-covered shore or dying can't touch him anymore, he just slips through their fingers.

The snake – a massive creature, elegant in grey-green and silver – regards him gravely. _That is where you are_ , it confirms solemnly.

Graham nods. It feels like the thing to do.

The snake's eyes soften. _It is sometimes known as the Oathkeepers' Nest_ , it offers gently.

“Okay,” Graham says, blinking furiously. He isn't crying. He isn't. Oh, Natalie, he's so sorry. “Okay. So...what now?”

_Now_ , the great snake says, turning to look at something behind him in the distance, _you meet the Oathkeepers._

 


	2. Unexplainable sightings in the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have an idea.

“Well, I met an old man  
Dying on a train.  
No more destination,  
No more pain.  
Well, he said  
"One thing before I graduate  
Never let your fear decide your fate."  
  
I say ya kill your heroes and  
Fly, fly, baby don't cry.  
No need to worry cause  
Everybody will die.  
Every day we just  
Go, go, baby don't go.  
Don't you worry we  
Love you more than you know. ”

\- _Kill Your Heroes_ , Awolnation

 

“But why am I here?” Graham asks the tawny-haired woman and the dark-haired man who came to him, sat with him on the stones, and explained the nature of this place and their own natures to him.

“You did swear an oath, as we did,” the woman – Maura – reminds him.

“Sworn in the same spirit and intent,” Alex, the man, adds hastily, “Which is, frankly speaking, the important part.”

Graham waves his hand, a trifle impatient. They aren't getting it. “No, I know that,” Graham says, “That's why I'm _allowed_ to be here, but not why I _am_ here. I mean, you never said that everyone who's sworn an oath like that comes here when they die, just that only those who swear that oath can be here. Nothing says they _have_ to be here. So why am I?”

The woman and the man traded glances, the man's wry, the woman's smug and superior. “I told you,” she murmured under her breath, in the familiar, sing-songy tones of a sister who knows she's right.

Alex's expression is grumpy when he makes a face at her, but when he looks at Graham there's no small amount of pride in his eyes. “Yes, well, I thought it would take at least a little time for him to think about that,” he comments absently. “You're not wrong, Graham – at least not entirely. No, swearing the oath does not guarantee that you come here when you die, and yes, we did bring you here for a purpose. However, it's not so selective as all that, and things are starting to change around here.” The green-eyed man grins, the way Selena does when she's set up some fantastic, cunning trick and he expects the results to be heard – loudly – any minute now. (He hopes Zach's alright, Graham couldn't ever face his Pride again if he wasn't. Not that he's going to do that anyway.)

Maura sighs gustily, in a way that seems...feigned, somehow. “It gets so _awfully_ lonely here sometimes,” she says airily. “A whole entire castle, big enough for thousands – hundreds of thousands, even, the castle expands with our desires – and only ten of us in it, well. What could we ever do with all that space?”

A few things fall into place in Graham's mind, and he smiles. “Invite guests?”

“We've _done_ that, though,” Alex groans, putting on an exaggeratedly sad moue, “It's just not the same. It's _boring_.”

“So we've decided to liven the place up a bit!” Maura declares with her nose in the air at an angle that can only be described as both snooty and ridiculous, placing her hands in her lap primly.

“Spruce it up, bring in a new tenant or two,” Alex says whimsically, looking up at the clouds like he's bored.

“Or two hundred, if we fancy it,” Maura adds offhandedly. “You never know. It could happen.”

By now, Graham's grin is so great, it stretches nearly from ear to ear. He's going to see his Pride again. Maybe.

“Of course,” Alex drawls, growing more serious, “An after-life spent looking over and guiding one's descendants on earth? It's no easy task, and it's not one everyone can do, either. Not to mention the other tasks of sovereignty and protection which we hold ours, and trust me – some of them are even less easy than guide to the living.”

“We can't bring everyone who dies here, either,” Maura says soberly. “Nor should we. This isn't where all the dead are meant to go, not really; this is _an_ afterlife, yes, but not  _The_ Afterlife, and it was never intended as such. We're not made to harbor all the world's dead – just a few of them. So we need to limit ourselves, and a way to do it that more easily than judging case by case.”

“You already have a way. The people who swear the oath,” Graham points out. “And everyone who doesn't swear it, or who swears it and breaks it, goes...wherever else it is they go.”

Alex shakes his head. “It's not enough,” he says. “The oath's a powerful thing, yes, but an afterlife, a special afterlife, which allows for direct observation and guidance of the living, that's even more powerful. Not by an inescapable margin. But enough.

“The oath is also a fairly loose requirement, as you've seen,” Alex says, raising an eyebrow and tipping his head in Graham's direction. “After all, you didn't swear our oath word-perfect, and yet here you are. It's the intent that matters, and the desire to devote yourself to your loved ones is a fairly common one. Enough that you'll see people swearing oaths about it – and you _will_ see them. More often than you'd think, and it's simply not equal or fair to keep a good bit of them out just because they're different from other people swearing the oath.”

Graham raises an eyebrow and gave them a look.

“It's a wonderful thing,” Maura says a little wryly, “But a bit unfortunate for us at the moment, yes.”

Graham thinks about it a moment, then accepts it with a nod. It makes sense, in the same manner as everything that's happened since he woke up on the pebble shore of a more beautiful version of the Black Lake, below a Hogwarts that shone like nothing he had seen before, in a world that felt like a dream.

“That,” Alex says then, voice low and intense, “is where you come in.”

Graham stares. “What?”

Maura nods. “You see, it's not such a problem as all that, to find or create a system to restrict admittance to this place as an after-life. We already have one, or at least an idea of one, and we'd like to have it in motion sooner rather than later, so that when the war ends, we can start putting it into effect. The problem is, we could do it, yes, but it would work a good deal better if we _weren't_.”

“And what is _it_?” Graham demands, fiercely curious.

 


	3. To be right where you are, how old is your soul?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A responsibility

“'Cause even the stars they burn  
Some even fall to the earth  
We've got a lot to learn  
God knows we're worth it ”

\- I Won't Give Up, Jason Mraz

 

Graham is at the very top of the north tower – in the real world it's Professor Trelawney's divination classroom, but here the Fates use it as a thinking place, and they're kind enough to let Graham use it from time to time – and reciting the third verse to himself under his breath, swearing he'll have it well and truly memorized by day's end, when far below he sees a girl step from the trees of the Forest. By the color of her clothing – white as snow – she can't be any of the Founders or their children, who wear the colors of the houses they represent. It takes a moment for this to really hit him.

Then he's dashing down stairs as fast as he can, which, given the nature of the dream world, is very fast indeed. It takes him what feels like no time at all before he's trotting across the lawn, slowing to a halt a few yards away from the girl. Though her back is turned now, facing the lion who has emerged from the forest behind her, he recognizes her.

“Colleen?” he says. She whips around, reaching out to her wand and the lion at the same time.

Colleen pauses, and blinks. “You're – Graham?” she says. “Graham Pritchard?” Her wand hand slackens, though the lion pads forward and arches up under her other hand. She pets it absently.

Graham nods. “I am. And you're Colleen Lamb. Blaise's girlfriend, right?”

Her eyes darken and go sad. “I was,” she murmurs. “Now...” her eyes meet his again. “Now, I suppose I'm dead, aren't I.” It's not really a question.

Graham smiles crookedly. “Yeah. I'd assume so.”

Colleen sags slightly, like she expected it, but it's still a mixed burden and relief. “So would I. Bellatrix Lestrange caught me with an Imperius, told me to kill Blaise. I couldn't bear it, and it would have caused chaos in the lines, besides. So I fought her off, just long enough to step out from behind the shields. Then...I was waking up here.”

Graham had been wondering why she was here, because he hadn't remembered her or Blaise forming a Pride of their own. Surely, if she's ever spoken an oath, it was an informal one at most...but then, a death like that is worth an oath all on its own. Colleen could not be more true to the words “My life for yours” even if she _had_ sworn the oath, and that, he supposes, is what matters.

Which means she is, for all intents and purposes, someone who kept their oath. Which is wonderful, but not enough for her to simply end up here by default. Which means she's been brought here on purpose. Which means there's a purpose for her presence, and Graham would bet a thousand Galleons he knows what it is. It's his purpose, too, after all.

“Don't worry too much about it,” he says, grinning a little. “We're not out of the race just yet.”

Colleen gives him a look, but gives up in exasperation when he just grins at her and takes to looking around instead. “What is this place?” she murmurs.

“It has many names,” Graham says almost solemnly, before grinning again. He can't help it. “But the one we're going to teach them is 'the Eternal Grounds.'”

It takes her a minute. Colleen rounds on him with what seems to be an attempt at a skeptical glare. It doesn't work; her eyes are simply too wide and startled.

“We're going to _what_?” she says slowly.

Graham could not grin more widely if he tried. “There's a reason we're here,” he starts. “Have you ever thought about being a teacher?”


End file.
